SPECIALLY DESIGNED ACADEMIC INSTRUCTION IN ENGLISH

(SDAIE)
The following scaffolding strategies are ways of organizing and shaping instruction in
order to create a classroom environment where ELL students can:

Take risks safely

Develop metacognition
Become better able to handle tasks involving complex language

MODELING:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Show or demonstrate to students what they are expected to do.

Guide students through each step of a process.
Have examples of previous student work for students to see.
Provide clear guidelines and standards.
Make sure your speech, behavior, dress, etc. set an appropriate model for students
to follow.

Examples: rubrics, rules and procedures posted, written instructions, illustrated

instructions, teacher demonstrations, video demonstrations, examples of finished work
and/or examples of finished work at different stages.
BRIDGING:
1. Activate and build on the knowledge that students already possess.
2. Move from the known to the unknown.
3. Help students make connections from previous learning to the new concepts or
behaviors.
4. Show how the new material is relevant or meaningful to students lives.
Examples: review of the previous lesson, explicit connections to lesson from another
class or content area, personal stories and anecdotes, connections to current events,
connections to students lives or interests, word walls, bulletin boards, etc.
CONTEXTUALIZATION:
1. Create a parallel to typically dry, incomprehensible text through pictures, videos
graphic organizers, manipulatives, and real objects (realia) to make information
comprehensible and available for mental processing.
2. Devise metaphors and analogies based on the students experiences.
5.
Examples: realia (real objects and materials), manipulatives (drawings, posters,
brainstorming-clusters, graphs, tables, maps, props, multimedia presentations,

storyboards, story maps), visuals (study-prints, text book-illustrations, overheadprojected prints, reproductions of paintings and documents, video and multimedia),
graphic organizers (matrices, Venn diagrams, and webs, KWL charts), stories that include
metaphors or analogies related to students lives and experiences.
SCHEMA BUILDING:
1. Help the students construct a framework of concepts that shows the relationships
between old and new learning and how they are connected
2. Use advanced organizers showing the significant aspects of information before a
lesson topic is presented, which presents important ideas within the big picture
and connects multiple facts or isolated concepts to a universal principal or body of
knowledge.
Examples of Advanced Organizers: KWL, PMI, Mind Map, Concept Web, T-Chart, Venn
Diagram, Fishbone, Story Map, etc.
TEXT RE-PRESENTATION:
1. Present information in another form (various modalities).
2. Students must review what they know and think about how to communicate
their knowledge in a new format.
3. Students become engaged in applying and transforming knowledge in meaningful
ways.
Examples: illustrations, charts, diagrams, graphic organizers, dramatization, creating
songs, dancing, rewriting stories, dioramas, models, etc.